Wednesday, 6 January 2016

Hungary 2016 - Mushu - Uncle Tom

Now here's a curious thing. When all the Hungarian songs were released yesterday, one song title stood out like a sore thumb. When you see a song called Uncle Tom crop up in the Eastern states, you wonder if either it was a highly politicised statement by a black performer, a well-meaning but misplaced song about racial unity by a moon-faced Budapest lass, or just an accidental folk tune about some farmer in the woods by a band who didn't know anything about the cultural caché of the term in the English-speaking world.

But puzzlingly it's none of the above - and it's made all the more curious by the fact that Mushu appear to be fronted by a perky black lad of the same name. The song itself is pretty decent. Its crunchy guitars and percussive stomp is reminiscent of second-album Arctic Monkeys, with a bit of Radkey's punk'n'blues guitaring chucked in for good measure - a kind of fifth generation indie pop rarely heard anywhere in this contest.

But even more strangely, the song's title doesn't directly allude to the content of the lyric. Is there some hidden meaning we haven't quite uncovered yet? Does the "Let my people go" line actually hint at something more biblical? Or is this just a bunch of kids chucking some nice sounding foreign words they don't fully understand into the song? I genuinely don't know, so I'm looking forward to finding out a bit more about this mob!

***STOP PRESS***

Mushu himself has sent us a message explaining the sentiment by the song.

"It's about people being overworked for fares that aren't enough to get them by. Speaking quite directly about the economical situation in Hungary, while using the Black American Slave Era as a direct analogy for how people are convinced that the injustices that befall them are the natural order of things, and thus don't strive to better themselves, or escape the prisons they often hold themselves in, or their circumstances force them into.

In live performances, I actually sing the second verse as
'Ain't no Masters, Ain't no Gods.
Don't Go Calling me Uncle Tom'."

And if you want to read the full lyric, go to the Comments section below.

1 comment:

Right, I've got a hold of the lyric, and it becomes considerably more clear now.

I Ain't got time for hanging aroundPeople not knowing when the sun goes downI worked so hard my nose turned brown,sniffing people not knowing when the sun go down.

Master, Master I’ve been toldFetch me silver, grab that goldI worked so hard with sleeves unrolled‘Cause I can’t pick cotton if it gets too coldMaster, I must say, you often charge more than you payI’d just as soon be on my wayBut a Knick-Knack Whipcrack and I stayOh My Blisters BleedThis ain’t the kind of work I needI’d rather starve than slave all dayYou can tax me, torture, but I won’t obeyCause I ain’t got time for hanging aroundPeople not knowing when the sun goes downI worked so hard my nose turned brown,sniffing people not knowing when the sun go down.

Ain’t no Masters, Ain’t no GodsLet My People Go!Ain’t no Masters, Ain’t no GodsLet My People Go!Ain’t no Masters, Ain’t no GodsLet My People Go!Take your chances, snatch the oddsLet My People Go!If you don’t get fed, what’re you working for ?Let My People Go!Well I’d shine your shoes and shovel snow,but it’s 6pm, I’ve got a life at homeCause I ain’t got time for hanging aroundPeople not knowing when the sun go downI worked so hard my nose turned brown,sniffing people not knowing when the sun go down.

What's this blog for?

Every year, the Eurovision Song Contest chucks up some amazing songs, but only a tiny few ever make it through to the televised final stages. For the couple of dozen that make it to Eurovision proper, there are hundreds that fall by the wayside in the semi-finals and local qualification tournaments. And very often that is where the true gems are to be found.

So Eurovision Apocalypse is here to dredge the best (and occasionally worst) of them out of the musical nether regions, as well as some of the other greatest oddities the contest has thrown up over the last fifty-odd years.